Seems like I have heard a lot of complaints about the wind blowing this year. No, not talking about some of our recent storm events; just complaints about the wind always blowing. I even saw a TV weather geek put up a chart to prove that June was windier than “normal”.
What in the world is “normal” in Nebraska?
I will tell you, “normal” is the average of the extremes!
Complain about the wind blowing? Sure it does, this is Nebraska! The wind quit blowing once and everyone fell over!
I learned a couple of things a long time ago: First, weather trumps everything, and secondly, there is nothing you can do about it.
So, you might as well learn to adapt and adjust. Better to use the wind to your advantage.
Sure there are some fishing situations where I am hoping for light winds and calm conditions; top-water fishing, sight-fishing, bluegills and other sunfish, fly-fishing. But, most of the time my motto is “any wind is better than no wind.” When I have big predator fish in my sights, and that is much of the time, I want wind! Wind gets the water moving, wind concentrates plankton and baitfish, wind creates chaos, big, bad predators love chaos!
One of the biggest walleyes I have caught from Calamus Reservoir was on a late spring day when the wind was howling out of the northwest, the “worst” direction. Who cared? I fished right into the teeth of it. Waves crashed into shore so high they washed my landing net away and I lost it! After catching several fish, I hooked a big walleye, what do do? No worries, about that time a big wave deposited the fish right at my feet.
Another time, into the teeth of a south gale, I could cast maybe twenty, thirty feet into the wind. I only waded out to my knees because the waves crashed higher than my waist from there. I got soaked. But, big white bass were right in the breakers and every cast produced a fish!
Just recently, middle of the day, I could see the wind and resulting shoreline current washing across a structure. It was too hot to fish, but I had a hunch there would be something sitting on that structure, in that wind. A bunch of crappies were, along with some smallmouth bass.
You cannot beat it, might as well join it! Look for “mudlines”, look for shoreline currents created by the waves, look for Langmuir spirals, the fish will be there.
The post Sometimes the Wind Blows appeared first on Nebraskaland Magazine.
